


after everything that was going to happen has happened

by englishghosts



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Casual Sex, Character Study, Drinking, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12783474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishghosts/pseuds/englishghosts
Summary: Five times Marcus didn't fall in love, and one time he did.





	after everything that was going to happen has happened

**Author's Note:**

> Title from A Primer For The Small Weird Loves, by Richard Siken.

He is fourteen years old the first time he kisses a boy, or rather, is kissed by a boy, but it's David, who is a bit older and who just the other day pushed his sketchbook off his lap into a wet puddle, so he pushes him away and knees him on the stomach for good measure. They wrestle for a bit, until there are footsteps coming, because there's an unspoken rule among all the boys that whatever mess they get into with each other, the adults must not be privy to it. They step away from each other, but not before David can say, "Don't try to pretend you didn't like it".

He doesn't try to kiss Marcus again, but the bullying worsens until he and Johnny S. are caught with their hands down each other's pants. Nothing too bad happens, because everyone knows it’s an inevitable thing when you shove dozens of teenage boys around each other, you just can’t be stupid enough to let yourself get caught, but from then on David doesn’t dare to bother Marcus again.

Marcus doesn’t know whether to feel grateful or scared.

-

The possessed man is only a few years older than Marcus. Étienne, a French student in his twenties, with dark, dark hair, and darker eyes even before the demon burrowed itself behind them. Marcus has been sitting with him for hours, but the demon is stubborn.

It has been fidgety for a few minutes now, tearing the already ragged shirt from the man’s chest. It stops for a second, sniffs the air and then stretches the rope around his ankles to sniff at Marcus’ face like a dog. It licks a long stripe up Marcus’ cheek, and it’s not pleasant but by far not the worse thing a demon has done to him. It draws back with a laugh.

“I don’t mind, you know”, it says, in Étienne’s soft, accented voice, and it might even be inviting were it not for the myriad pustules in his face. “ _Un fiotte_ ”, it laughs again, more cruelly, this time. “Is the church letting anyone in these days?”

Marcus doesn’t recognize the word, but the tone is clear, has been hurled at him often enough, and so he ignores it. “All holy patriarchs and prophets, St. Peter, St. Pa-”

“This one is like you”, it runs filthy hands down Étienne’s chest, down to his thighs, covered in thin pyjamas. “Already dirty before we got our hands on him.”

“St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. James, St. John…”

“I could let you borrow him”. Its voice is soft and purring, its smile almost sweet. “Don’t you want to know what it is like?” It touches himself slowly through his pants. “I could show you.”

In other circumstances, it would be tempting. Étienne’s lips are full and red, and it would be easy to give in, to touch him just for a second. He can’t deny his body’s urges, even if he doesn’t act on them, and sometimes when he can’t sleep, which is more often than not, he imagines kissing someone properly, a man he saw on the bus, an actor from the Ten Commandments movie they got to watch on Friday, Simon who needed help with his Latin and has curly blonde hair and rosy cheeks like a cherub and blushed when Marcus made a joke. He imagines touching them and letting them touch him, imagines fingers running through his hair and warm hands on his hips. He knows most of the other boys don’t have similar fantasies, only do things with each other because of proximity and hormones, but he can’t help it no matter how many Hail Marys he recites to himself. Still, God hasn’t abandoned him, hasn’t stopped working through him, and that makes him bold.

When it’s finally over, Étienne holds him tight, kisses his forehead and his cheeks, and Marcus fights the urge to lean into the touch.

-

It's his last week before being ordained. It’s not that he doesn’t want to do it, it’s the only possible future he sees ahead of him, but he can’t help the part of himself that feels like there’s a leash getting tighter and tighter around his neck. He's already drank everything he could, and smoked some things he shouldn't have, and now there’s one thing left.

There’s a painting on the wall, a Renaissance reproduction of a woman with a fruit bowl. He tries to ignore it, but he can feel her judging him, and for a moment, he considers if perhaps he is too drunk to do this. He keeps his eyes closed.

“Have you done this before?” John, probably not his real name, asks from behind him.

“Yes”, he lies, pushes himself back on his fingers like he means it. John seems to sense it’s not true, and he is gentle, gentler than Marcus would have liked.

Afterwards, John makes tea, and kisses Marcus sweetly as he walks him to the door. For a wild second Marcus wonders what would happen if he didn’t go back, wonders if he could leave everything behind for something like this. London is big enough that he could lose himself in it, and the idea feels both exhilarating and terrifying.

The moment passes, and he says his goodbyes. He takes the train in the morning.

-

He meets Bennett when he is sent to France to exorcise a girl in Bennett’s parish. Bennett’s couch is small but mercifully not lumpy and he accepts the offer to sleep on it instead of the youth hostel provided for him. Within three days, they are within an inch of killing each other, but neither wants to be the first to acknowledge it.

The demon finally relents, leaving Bennett with a sprained ankle and Marcus with a deep gash on his stomach. The girl’s family insists on having them for dinner, but when they get back home, Bennett pushes him hard against the door, and it’s less of a kiss and more like biting into each other’s mouths. Marcus has never been on this side of things, but Bennett takes the lead, straddles him right there on the living room floor.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep after it’s over, but he wakes up to Bennett nudging him on the ribs. His back creaks and there is a terrible crick in his neck, and the bastard doesn’t seem the least bit sorry about having let him sleep on the floor.

They have breakfast in silence, and Bennett leaves for church. Marcus is gone by the time he comes back.

-

He gets the news of Father Sean’s death during an exorcism in Vienna, and shoves a bottle of holy water down the demon’s throat before it can start speaking in his voice.

That night, he goes out. His German is passable at best, but the language of seedy, smoky bars is easy enough. He lets a man push him to his knees inside a bathroom stall, and for a while, he only has to think about breathing through his nose.

He visits the cemetery, afterwards. There’s a chill in his spine as he stares at the sombre stone. _Someone just walked over your grave_ , his mother’s voice says in his ear. He downs a whole bottle of cheap vodka and resolves to never set foot in Birmingham again if he can help it.

-

He plays loud music so he doesn’t have to hear Gabriel’s mother’s screams in his head, the sound his neck made as it snapped. He draws until he can’t feel his hands anymore, so he doesn’t feel the boy’s broken body in his arms. He prays until his voice is hoarse, but God doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, and everyone who speaks to him treats him either like a misbehaving child or a cracked porcelain vase, but he figures it’s his punishment.

It goes on for eighteen months.

-

Tomas crashes on the bed as soon as they walk into the room, and is asleep within seconds. Marcus takes the time to take off his shoes, then his own, before stretching next to him, because this is the only motel for miles and they only had the honeymoon suite available, which is a way of saying they were grossly overcharged for a bed only slightly larger than a single.

Tomas sleeps with his mouth open and snores softly when he is too tired. He dislikes mangoes. He likes cheesy action movies and he hums old love ballads when he cooks, which is not often and with a very small success rate. Marcus doesn’t want to learn those things, doesn’t want to think about the way Tomas bites his lip when he is thinking hard about something, or the way his hair curls after he takes a shower, but even though he tries, he can’t help it. He catalogues these little details in the back of his mind, stores them for when this is over, when Tomas manages to self-destruct completely, or when he decides he has had enough and would like to go back to his church and to his sister. Marcus doesn’t know what he’ll do then, can’t bear the thought of going back to doing this alone. It’s a liability, a chink in his carefully constructed armour, and half the time he thinks he never should have accepted it in the first place. The rest of the time, he will thank God for having set them together, even if the cost in the end turns out to be too high.

**Author's Note:**

> This feels pretty different from everything I have ever written, mostly because there doesn't seem to be a finishing point. Basically the first part came to me, and it developed from there. Next episode might make most of it canon divergent anyway.


End file.
